


We're All on One Road and We're Only Passing Through

by Muir_Wolf



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Male-Female Friendship, POV Outsider, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-16
Updated: 2011-05-16
Packaged: 2017-10-19 11:30:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/200359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muir_Wolf/pseuds/Muir_Wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>'I promise'</i> he'd written, and sixteen years later he's here, sixteen years later he's still making sure you're safe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We're All on One Road and We're Only Passing Through

_”I was with Washington at Valley Forge, shivering in the snow.  
I said, "How come the men here suffer like they do?"  
"Men will suffer, men will fight, even die for what is right  
even though they know they're only passing through”_  
-"Passing Through" by Leonard Cohen

 

He's twelve years old to your sixteen, but when you're surrounded by boys that used to be your friends, when they circle around you and call you _'slut'_ and everyone else just stands there, silent, watching, Dean doesn't blink. He doesn't know who you are, and you know by the way your tears must be smearing your mascara that you look like hell, but then he only glances at you to smile in a reassuring sort of way, despite the fact that the senior boys tower over him.

He walks over and stands in front of you, arms crossed, and tells them to leave you alone. They laugh at first, and then start getting irritated, and when they finally realizes he's not moving one of them swipes a lazy hand at him, and Dean ducks under it and then darts forward to give him a surprisingly strong shove.

But even if Dean is quick and strong— _and you'll never admit it but you almost think he's still holding back_ —six-to-one is never a fair fight, especially when the older boys go from irritated to embarrassed and furious. You slap the boy that used to be your boyfriend hard, wondering fleetingly why you didn't do it when it was just you at stake.

By this time teachers have arrived, and detentions are being handed out, and a teacher is trying to hurry Dean off to the nurse because _'six seniors beating up a twelve-year-old boy, something must be broken'_ but Dean shakes them off, standing there in front of you, back straight, bloody and dirty and with something in his eyes that make the seniors think twice before touching him again, before touching _you_ again, because his eyes are older and more dangerous than they should be…

Except when the teachers have moved them _off_ and _away_ from the little boy who seems to have a death wish, he turns to look at you, and he smiles, and you can't help but smile back, can't help but keep him company to the nurses and give your _honest_ statement to the Principal, and make sure he gets home okay, because his eyes are more than honest, they're tired but determined, and something about him makes you know that despite his age, this isn't the first time he's had someone's back, it's not the first time he's interfered and stood up for someone else.

He's got friends his age, but you can't help but notice how he moves through them, how he's there but not really there, easily accepted by anyone but just passing through the different groups and people. He's smart, he's cute, he's athletic, but he doesn't rest, he roams. And what gets you most is the way he's always watching. He'll be leaning back in his chair, laughing with a group of boys, but he's always scanning the room. It's hardly noticeable, unless you look for it.

You don't mean to invite him to sit with you, but you notice that he tends to keep an eye on you and your friends, and it touches you more than you expect it to. He's funny and charming and when you realize he's getting ready to drift away once more you force a promise from him to come back. _Promises don't mean anything, you think, except you're pretty sure his do._

He ends up passing through your group more than any other, despite the fact that you're different age groups, despite the fact that he seems to prefer his tough-guy front more than any other, definitely more than the face he wears with you.

You find yourself wishing he didn't always drift away, if only because you know he needs a friend, and you're beyond willing to be it. You call him sweetie and he calls you pretty lady. You tie him down with honesty; you bring him back with gentle teasing. He doesn't want questions or pity or lies, so you promise not to give them to him. He's twelve and you're sixteen and this is the most honest friendship you'll ever have.

He's brash and innocent and you and your friends can't help but flirt lightly back, recognizing the heartbreaker he'll become in the little sweetheart in front of you, some part of yourselves dying for the girls he'll love and leave.

Except even now, with his precocious smile and sparkling eyes—with the way he so easily teases and cajoles and flirts and never thinks your hurts or troubles aren't worth fighting for, you think that maybe he'll be worth it.

And the way he's honest _except where he softens the truth to an almost lie_ makes you think he'll be honest about it at least, even if they'll still risk everything for the chance that he'll change.

He loves his brother more than anything in the world. He doesn't speak about his father but you know he's often gone. The one time you ask about his mother there's enough hurt in his eyes that you know she doesn't live a couple of states away and visits on holidays. He's gone sometimes, and when he comes back he's decorated with bruises, but the one time you ask about them he drifts away for the longest time yet.

You wish he was your little brother.

You think you could have protected one another, because while he knows you sometimes need protection, you're just beginning to learn that whatever he's seen, whatever he knows is too big a burden for someone so young.

You used to worry about dances and dresses and finals and college.

Now you look for his face in the crowd.

He leaves school four months later. There's a can of pepper spray, a flower, and a note in your locker, and without even reading the note you know that he's drifted away forever.

  
_Emma—_

 _We're moving. You'll be okay. You don't need me to keep you safe, you're strong. Don't let anyone tell you you're something you're not._

 _You're pretty and smart and if they piss you off kick them in the balls._

 _Goodbye, Pretty Lady._

 _—Dean_

 _…Emma. You'll be safe. I promise._

You miss him for a time, _meaning random moments five years later make you think of him_ , but times passes and you forget him. Months turn into years and you date and work and get engaged and married, and then you're 32 years old and your husband is dead on the floor. After the police and paramedics and the funeral you don't turn off the lights and you feel eyes on the back of your neck and things move from the corner of your eyes and you come to the unwelcome realization that you don't feel safe in your home. There are footsteps when you're alone in the house, and things fall and shatter when you turn your back and it's been _two days_ since you buried your husband, _one week_ since you found him lying on the cold tile, and the front door locks when you touch it and _someone is laughing in your empty house_.

Out of nowhere you remember Dean, young sweet Dean asking you, voice soft, all those years ago, if you believed in ghosts, and how he'd said the air was supposed to get cold and out of some vague memory you remember him speaking about rock salt and burning bones and all those things that had made you laugh because _the things boys were interested in…_

You're remembering him looking up at you, wide-eyed, telling you he wanted you to always be safe while you're trying to pour a circle of salt around yourself with hands that won't stop shaking.

Overhead the lights flicker on-and-off and you close your eyes and don't move and think about Dean as you flip open your cell and start to dial 9-1-1—except there's no signal and anyway there's no one in your house and what could you tell them? They think your husband died of a heart attack, even though you insisted he was murdered, and they wouldn't believe you now.

It's two hours later and you've forced yourself to keep your eyes closed because the moving chairs and banging on the walls have convinced you that looking is going to make you run and you _have to stay in the salt circle._ Wouldn't Dean be proud?

As if you conjured him up the door bursts open and unable to stop yourself your eyes snap open and two men are standing in the doorway, and you can see it in his eyes, in the smile he flashes you before shooting the flickering image in front of you, in the way that 16 years later he's still fighting your battles.

The second man reaches out a hand and when Dean looks at you—tense and certain and watching out for you—you grab it and he drags you out into the night.

There's a gunshot from behind you and then Dean loops an arm around your back, urging you on. He gets you to the door, and then it slams shut, with you and Dean inside and the other man outside.

Dean shoves you behind him, and slaps his jacket pockets, and then aims the gun at the flickering figure of a girl that's walking towards you, despite the fact that you know, now, that he doesn't have any more bullets, that the girl— _the ghost_ —is walking towards you and there's nothing between you and her except for Dean.

He's growling curses at her, and the man outside is slamming on the door, _and it's sixteen years ago and Dean is standing in front of you, protecting you, with nothing more than determination and his sense of honor_ and your hand goes to your purse, hanging in the doorway, grabbing the canister of pepper spray that Dean had given you all those years ago, that you'd never used, never needed, kept mostly as a sort of good-luck charm.

As the ghost steps into range Dean swings the gun, and when it passes through her she shatters into smoke and then suddenly reappears in front of you. Your scream half-dies in your throat and you aren't even thinking when you spray the pepper spray in her face, and if she weren't so close the sixteen-year-old spray wouldn't have reached far enough but she shrieks, and shatters again and Dean grabs you and forces you through the door that's finally open, and between the two men you're in the back of a car and speeding down the road before you can fully comprehend what just happened.

They take you to a diner.

Dean orders pie, which makes you smile.

"Emma, I don't know if you remember—" he starts, and you cut him off.

"Dean." It's all you think you can manage, but the look in his eyes, the surprised, self-conscious, almost-happy look that's so familiar it's like no time has passed at all, makes it worth the struggle it took to get that one word out. He clears his throat, and you can't stop staring at him, at the man the little boy you loved has turned into.

"This is my brother, Sam," he says, and Sam is looking between the two of you, the sort of look that demands answers sooner or later, but Dean just waves him off. "I got here as soon as I heard," he says, and it's eight words that mean more than anything has ever meant to you ever.

 _'I promise'_ he'd written, and sixteen years later he's here, sixteen years later he's still making sure you're safe.

"I'm sorry about Kyle," he says, and you nod, unable to speak, willing yourself not to break into tears.

"We're going to take care of this," Sam says, and you look at him, really look at him for the first time since sitting down and you can see it in his eyes, in the corners of his mouth, in the set of his shoulders—you can see some of Dean in him—the courage if not the bravado, the determination if not the daring, and it's heartening in a way, terrifying in another. _Dean but not-Dean. What have they seen to make them like this?_

"My question," Dean says, leaning forward, looking serious, "Is how you managed to pepper spray a _ghost._ "

You smile despite yourself. "She didn't have balls to kick, so I grabbed the pepper spray you gave me."

Dean smiles back at you, looking proud of you, which shouldn't matter so much but always has. "You kept my pepper spray?" he asks, and Sam's frowning, not following.

"You gave her pepper spray?" he asks Dean softly. Dean shrugs.

"I laced it with salt and iron just in case," he says. _'He wanted you to always be safe.'_

Three hours later, and Sam's doing research and Dean's flirting in his old, light way that lets you know he doesn't mean it, that lets you know that he's willing to hold you tight while you cry but he's pretty sure you aren't ready for that quite yet. Sam keeps scowling at him, obviously not understanding, and the repartee between the two of them, the half-mumbled comments about _recently widowed_ and _comforting the bereaved_ along with their obviously dulled swords dueling away as they pass each other, helps keep your mind off of other things.

 _At least_ , you think, _he didn't drift away from everyone._

Another hour, and you're back in the car. Sam's not happy about it, something about taking _'civilians on a hunt,'_ but Dean's _'sure-as-hell not leaving her alone right now'_ and Sam doesn't seem to be inclined to argue.

You're off to salt-and-burn some bones.

You aren't precisely sure how to feel about that, but then you're also not quite sure how you feel about almost being murdered by a ghost earlier this evening, so you're settling on trusting Dean, despite the fact that you're pretty sure you shouldn't be trusting a man you haven't seen in sixteen years _quite_ so easily.

They both dig. Sam salts, Dean pours the lighter fluid on, and Sam lights the match and drops it in.

It comes too easily, too naturally, and now you know that all of Dean's comments all those years ago were based in fact. Now you know why he came back from trips bruised and why he stayed so removed, and the way that he and his brother salt-and-burn the body on auto-pilot lets you know that this isn't what made his eyes so old.

You think, fleetingly, that with the smallest bit of their experience you could've saved Kyle.

You think, briefly, what their experience has cost them.

They take you home.

Dean insists they sleep downstairs on the couches just in case, but nothing happens. When morning comes Sam seems content but both of you are already anticipating Dean. He never has been able to rest anywhere long.

This time, he doesn't leave you with a note, but with a tight hug, and you will yourself to stay strong for him, because he thinks you can be strong and you want to prove him right. But when he plants a soft kiss on your forehead you can't stop the choked sob building in your throat.

"It's okay," he whispers. "It's okay, you're going to be okay."

"I know," you say, because it's what he wants you to say, it's what he needs you to say.

"Emma," he says, pulling back a little to look you in the eyes. "You're going to be okay. _I promise._ "

You manage a watery smile. _Promises don't mean anything, you think, except you know, now, that his always do._

"Be safe," you say, although it sounds silly to your ears, insubstantial, useless. "Thank you," you say, and it still sounds meaningless, but he leans his forehead against yours. Dean, for everything he ever was, everything he is, has never been emotional or sensitive, so you stay very still and try not to breathe or scare him off.

"Goodbye," he says, and you can't help the tear that trickles down your cheek. "Be strong," he says, and you nod numbly. He's halfway down the steps before you finally realize what you wanted to tell him.

"Dean," you say, and he turns and looks at you, and you think, fleetingly, of the way you'd worried for the girls who'd love and lose him, never realizing that you were one of them all along, just in a different way.

"Dean," you say, "I never stopped watching for you. Wherever I went, part of me was always watching for your face in the crowd."

He swallows, and his eyes go from hurt to stunned to confused to hesitant. He starts to speak, stops, clears his throat. Then he smiles, and it's the cheeky smile that always lit up your world.

"You're the only girl I've ever bought a flower for," he says, and you laugh, knowing he's telling the truth, knowing he's heading off into the night, knowing you'll never see him again, knowing he'll keep tabs on you just as he always has, knowing your life is better for knowing him, knowing, with an ache that will never go away, that he will never be safe, and that you will always wonder and worry and hope.

"Goodbye, sweetie," you say, and he nods.

"Goodbye, pretty lady," he says, and your ritual is complete, and Dean Winchester drifts back off into the night, and you stand alone, breathless and bruised and facing the world.

  
_Finis_   


**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted 1 February 2009.


End file.
